Méditerranée!

On Saturday, Jacqueline and I set off with Stephanie and Melissa (the other volunteer from BYU here for the summer) to go explore a few little islands off the coast of Marseille. Yes, those islands there. 

To get the real feel of this glorious day, read this post while listening to THIS, and you will maybe understand a bit better. 

We took the metro over to Vieux Port (old harbor), grabbed some lunch at this boulangerie:

 and then set off on this cute little boat. Here we are leaving the harbor:

A pretty old church (yes, another one)

 Le chateau d'if (deeef). Sound familiar? You might remember this island from The Count of Monte Cristo. It's where the main character, Edmond Dantes, was imprisoned for fourteen years. If you ask me, whoever thought to make this a prison was kind of dumb because with the most incredibly beautiful scenery outside, it's not very prison-like. WIth all the sailboats floating around, it was simply picturesque.

 Yes, it really was that stunningly beautiful.

 Le chateau

 The little courtyard inside. 

 This was supposedly Edmond Dantes's cell. They have a TV in there where they play scenes of his imprisonment from several different versions of the film. And that's the hole through which Dantes and Abbe Faria communicated. I was impressed by the effort they put in to make it all seem authentic. 

 So, apparently when this castle was first built, the king of Portugal offered whoever was in charge of it this rhino... or something. Either way, I thought you'd enjoy that dad. A little gift from the Portuguese. 

The cell of the man in the iron mask... Louis XIV's brother? Qui sait?

 Up on the roof. View to the west, of Marseille. 

View to the east, of the other Frioul islands. 

As Jacqueline said, "everything is so NBD here." Seriously. Do you see that water? If I weren't here, I would hate myself. So... sorry.

 Some carvings inside the chateau. We decided that it would be lucky to touch them. Pretty sure it was. :)

 Okay, I admit that that would be pretty torturous. Right?

Carvings on the walls. 

Of course we stopped by the gift shop, and of course we all had to buy copies of Le comte de Monte Cristo in French, with the Chateau d'If stamp on it (except Jacqueline--she's already in the middle of the book!)

We hopped back on the boat and over to the two other islands, where we wandered around for a while, and then walked around forever, eventually finding our way to the beach. 

 The beach!! Enfin!

 It still had a beautiful view of Marseille and chateau d'if. 

 First time in the Mediterranean Sea! Woot!

Not only my first time in the Mediterranean sea, but it was also my first taste of French beaches. Let's just say, awkward. There's no other way to put it. But, it was also an unbelievably pretty beach with unbelievably clear water. Jacqueline kept pointing out how crazy it was that we could see all the way down to our toes the whole time we were in the water. That is some crystal clear water. The camera cannot do it justice.  

After we'd had our fill of the beach (and a good chance of burns tomorrow), we headed back to Marseille. Some government building:

This adorable merry-go-round in the middle of Vieux Port.

I may or may not have gotten on the Metro in my swimming suit. I'm such a good packer. 

We got back to the other girls' apartment with enough time to change before running down the street to this little pizza place, where the lady in charge loved us all because her dog is named Utah. Random much? The pizza was incredible, though our judgement may have been skewed by how hungry we were. 

And to top it off, she gave us each a slice of apple pie--for free!! So nice. I had just said something that was completely not something you would say in either French nor English. Oh well. 

We were happy to get cheap train tickets back to Toulon, and we got to the train station just exactly in time. We just had to take pictures in front of the square when it was all lit up. 

So yeah. Cloudless skies, crystal clear water, not-too-cold water. I have to say, big fan of the Mediterranean! I will definitely be back.